


Bluebeard's Daughter

by tetrahedron



Series: Märchen [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Family Secrets, Gen, pre- ME1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 19:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetrahedron/pseuds/tetrahedron
Summary: This is how the story goes: once upon a time there was a little girl, a locked door, and a Monster.





	Bluebeard's Daughter

"I am sending back the key  
that let me into bluebeard's study;  
because he would make love to me  
I am sending back the key;  
in his eye's darkroom I can see  
my X-rayed heart, dissected body:  
I am sending back the key  
that let me into bluebeard's study."

_-Sylvia Plath_

 

The shuttle was dimly lit and warm with recycled air, all the soft noises of the sleeping passengers and crew muted by the hum of the oxygen filters and the gentle drone of the engines. The glowing eye of the mass relay had dwindled away until it was lost among the countless stars that hung suspended in the dark. In the very back row, a lady crouched over a portable work interface, typing intently with one hand, clutching a paper cup of lukewarm coffee in the other, her face pale and peaked in the faint light from the screen.

She yawned, and took a quick sip from her cup, grimacing at the taste of the weak, tepid coffee. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to focus on the document in front of her. Her colleague’s notes on the latest briefing were vague and disorganized, with a thinly veiled undertone of remonstrance. She felt a surge of irritation, and beneath that, a sharper pang of guilt. For the thousandth time she reminded herself she was perfectly justified in requesting personal time, especially given her exemplary performance record over the last five years. Still, she had labored tirelessly to make herself indispensable, and old habits died hard.

The truth was that there was no real need for her to personally oversee this task; she could just as easily have managed it remotely. But she’d felt it necessary to be on hand in order to make sure everything went off as smoothly as possible. If she were the sort of woman given to soul-searching, she might have divined that there was a far simpler reason she’d wanted to be present on this particular shuttle, at this particular date. But while she prided herself on her ability to provide an accurate assessment of her rather spectacular physical capabilities, she had always considered introspection a distraction best suited to people with more time than sense.

At any rate, the shuttle would soon land, and with her business concluded, she could see about catching a few hours of sleep before beginning the return journey. In the meantime, there was plenty of work to keep her occupied. And there was something rather satisfying about being the only one awake, secure in the knowledge that while others slept, one’s work could proceed uninterrupted.

An unexpected noise jolted her out of her thoughts. When she glanced up, there was a small child staring at her from the aisle.

“Hello,” the child said.

The lady gave a violent start, and only just managed to refrain from dropping her coffee. She scrambled to keep it from spilling over onto the keys of her work interface.

“You ought to be in your seat,” she admonished. Her coffee cup secure, she raised her head in an attempt to locate an accompanying adult, and, finding none, turned a slightly panicked gaze back at the child. “Where is your mother?”

“Mummy’s asleep,” the child said, climbing up into the empty seat next to her. “She has been for ages. Do you think we’ll land soon?”

“We’re scheduled to arrive in two hours and fifteen minutes,” the lady said, putting a defensive arm around her work interface and edging back toward the window.

“Two hours,” the child groaned, wrapping her arms around her legs and slumping deeper into the seat. She looked up at the lady. “Do you know any games?”

“No,” the lady said, staring at her interface as if willing it to swallow her up and transport her far away from her present circumstances.

The child sighed. “Daddy does,” she said glumly. “He knows loads.”

“Perhaps you ought to ask him then,” said the lady, her eyes skimming over the next brief.

“We’re meeting him at the station.”

“Oh yes, that’s right,” the lady said absently, frowning at one particularly egregious mistake. She began typing a note.

The child craned her neck around the lady’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that was so absorbing. “Have you been to Illium before?”

“A few times,” the lady said, repositioning the interface so it was out of the child’s view.

“What’s it like?”

“It’s quite suitable for a young fam- I mean,” the lady said, coloring, “I think you’ll like it very much.”

The child stared at her. The lady stole a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, and then just as quickly looked away, flustered.

“Do you know any stories?” The child asked.

“No.”

“Oh,” the child said in a puzzled, dismayed sort of voice, as if she had never before encountered a person so unfortunate as to lack the capacity for both games and stories.

“Well, I-” the lady broke off, blinking. “I suppose I could try.”

The child’s face brightened. “Tell me one,” she demanded.

The lady pursed her lips, and tried to look stern. “Is that how you ask?”

“I’m sorry,” the child said, in a manner so patently untrue that the lady had to suppress a smile. “Tell me a story, _please_.”

“Very well,” the lady said, closing her work interface and planting her coffee cup firmly in its holder. “What sort of story would you like to hear?”

“A story about a little girl,” the child said immediately. She paused, thinking hard. Then she smiled. “And a monster.”

Some instructable emotion flickered across the lady’s face. “A little girl and a monster,” she repeated slowly, her eyes going hooded. “Are you quite sure?”

“Oh yes,” said the child, looking up at her expectantly.

“Well,” said the lady, “if you insist.” For a few minutes she was silent, her head lowered in thought. At last she cleared her throat, and began to speak:

...

Once upon a time, on a world far away from here, there lived a monster.

He was very old and very wealthy, and he made his home not in a cave or under a bridge but in a castle on the outskirts of a thriving metropolis, for like all of the cleverest monsters he had learned the trick of disguising himself as a man. He filled his castle with all manner of wondrous things: plates of polished gold and silver, sheets of the softest silk, lavish furnishings crafted of rare and exotic materials, and many fine works of art. Even his servants were remarkable; long limbed, placid creatures of indeterminate sex, they shared a distinctive facial symmetry that was pleasing to the eye. For it was very important to the monster that everything in his home should be beautiful.

In this castle there also lived a girl.

...

“Was she a princess?”

The lady stopped, clearly annoyed at the interruption. “No,” she said. “She was just a girl.”

“But if she lived in a castle-”

“I assure you, she was not a princess. Now would you like to hear the rest of the story, or shall I have the shuttle attendant come and fetch your mother?”

“The story, please,” said the child in a small voice, and the lady continued.

...

The monster gave the girl to understand that there was nothing in his house which was not the best of its kind, and that if she wished to remain, she would be no exception. So long as she obeyed him in this she was allowed free reign over his home and everything in it. However, there was one place that she was forbidden to set foot: the little room that stood at the end of a long corridor in the darkest, coldest part of the castle.

The girl poured all her energy into pleasing him, striving to hone her body and mind into the ideal he desired. Each year she grew more beautiful and more accomplished. Her tutors swore she was a prodigy, and her physical trainers marveled at her speed, strength, and endurance. The girl drank in their praise like water, for though the monster indulged her every whim, he had not so much as a kind word to spare for her. He was cold and aloof, and would frequently disappear without explanation for long periods of time. Every now and then she would catch him staring at her in a way that made her acutely uncomfortable without understanding why.

Still, she had everything a girl her age could want, and a great deal more; fine clothes, a palatial set of suites, and a host of servants to wait on her, and as the years passed she grew tall, strong, sharp-witted, resourceful and-

...

Once again the child cut in. “Did she have a pony?”

The lady looked as though she would have liked to be cross at the interruption, but her face soon softened. “She did in fact have a pony,” she admitted with a half-smile. “He had a glossy black coat and a great shaggy mane that the girl liked to braid with flowers, and he was very fond of the little green apples that grew in the garden. He was meant to be trim and fit, but I’m sorry to say he grew quite fat, for the girl loved him so much, she snuck him apples almost every day. Now,” she said, her voice dry, “may I continue?”

“You may,” the child said, nodding graciously.

...

One day the monster summoned the girl to his quarters, and informed her that he would be leaving for several weeks to tend to his affairs in the city. And he gave her the keys to his castle so that she would be able to manage things for him in his absence.

As soon as the girl had the keys in her hands, a feeling like an electric shock went through her. There hanging beside the others was a small, silver key she had never seen before. And her heart quickened in her chest, for she knew without a doubt that it must be the key to the little room at the end of the corridor in the castle’s undercroft.

For years she had obeyed the monster’s every command, followed every rule. But standing there with the key warming in her hand, she resolved that she would creep down into lowest part of the castle that very night and see for herself what was hidden in the room.

She waited until well after the monster had departed. When the sun dipped low in the sky, and the last of the servants retired for the night, she rose fully clothed from her bed. And with the keys jangling in her pocket, she quickly made her way down the stairs until she reached the corridor that led to the room.

The undercroft of the castle stood many feet below the earth, and it was very dark and cold. The girl shivered as she walked down the long hallway, and not only from the chill. For as she drew closer to the door, she began to fancy that she could hear voices whispering beside her.

 _I did not know_ , said one voice in an anguished murmur, _I did not know that I was flawed. When I opened my eyes for the first time the world seemed so bright I could barely look at it without flinching, and yet I felt certain that it was good. But he shut me away in the dark before the year was finished._ It sighed, and the sound was like wind rustling through empty branches.

 _Defective,_ another voice hissed, each word tight and sharp with rage. _Imperfect. Why did he make me this way? Why did he make me at all?_

 _Pah,_ yet a third voice said disdainfully. _No living thing is perfect. Perfection is the shroud in which one clothes the dead, the amber that entombs the fly. We shed our flaws with our flesh. We are to be admired._

 _Quiet, sisters,_ a fourth voice commanded. _Someone comes._

The girl was by now quite frightened, though she was far too proud to admit it, even to herself. She stepped up to the door, and with trembling hands put the little silver key to the lock. It fit perfectly.

Holding her breath, she turned the handle.

The room was so dark that at first glance she could hardly see anything at all. The air was stale and heavy, and the faint light from the hall fell over her shoulder in a slim rectangle, revealing a patch of wall that was bare and grimy with dust. It was clear no one had entered in many years.

The girl felt an odd pang of disappointment. Opening the door wider, she took a cautious step forward, and then started as she caught a glimpse of movement at the far end of the room. She recoiled in alarm, the keys falling with a clatter from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The shadowy figure duplicated her movement, and to her immense chagrin the girl realized she was looking into a mirror.

She gave a shaky laugh, and crouching down, began to feel around the floor for the keys.

As she picked them up, her hand touched something hard and dry. And as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the room was not empty at all.

It was full of bones.

The girl froze. Part of her wanted to run, and the other part thought she might be sick. But before she could do either, something spoke to her from the dark.

 _Hello little sister,_ it said in four voices.

Only her pride kept her from bolting right back up the hallway. Her face went white as chalk, and her legs trembled beneath her like leaves in the wind, but eventually she found the courage to reply.

“Who are you,” she asked. “And why do you call me sister?”

The bones clattered and rattled, and they whispered a warning to her in the lisping voices of young girls. They told her that the monster only loved beauty because it distracted him from his terrible hunger. Soon, they whispered, he would grow hungry again. And then there would be a new girl in his castle, and a new set of bones shut away in the room.

The girl did not want to believe them. “Why should I listen to you,” she said, wrapping the shreds of her tattered pride around her like a cloak. “I am a beautiful girl, and you are nothing but a pile of old bones.”

 _I was a girl once_ , sighed the first voice. _Though not for long. No, not long at all._

 _Tainted,_ hissed the second voice. _Flawed. You are too much like him to ever be perfect._

 _She is confused, poor creature,_ declared the third. _It is what comes of having a body. What clumsy, unsightly things they are! Fear not, little sister_ , it added, not unkindly. _When he has stripped the flesh from your bones, you will be free of him at last_.

“What do you mean?” said the girl, shrinking back.

 _Look_ , said the fourth voice. _See for yourself._

Against her will, the girl walked to the mirror. In it’s dim reflection she saw that the floor beneath her feet was dark and viscous with clotted blood. Her hands gleamed at her sides, red to the wrist with gore. And when she looked up at her own face, she did not see a beautiful girl, but an in-between creature, with a monster’s eyes and a dead woman’s smile.

With a cry, the girl ran from the room. She slammed the door shut, and hurried to lock it behind her. But try as she might, the key would not turn. There was blood on the door and on her hands, slick and red even in the dark. When the monster came home, he would see that the room had been opened, and that frightened her so much that she sank down to the floor and began to shake.

“What will I do?” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

 _You must run, little sister,_ the voices said from behind the door.  _Run as far as your feet will take you._

The girl thought about leaving the house, about what it would mean, and a fresh wave of despair swept over her. What sort of life could she have outside the monster’s walls? No one out there cared for her, no one needed her; indeed, no one relied on her for anything at all. And why should they? For all her striving and posturing, in the end she was nothing but a monster’s toy: pretty as a doll, and just as easily discarded. If he shut her bones away in the dark, there would be no one in the whole universe who would ever think to search for her.

The bones rattled and clattered. She heard the door creak open behind her.

 _Look_ , said the fourth voice.

And when the girl looked back, she saw there was something else inside the room.

...

The lady fell silent.

The child leaned forward, spellbound. “What was it?”

The lady hesitated. “A treasure,” she said finally.

“What kind of treasure,” asked the child. “A golden ring? Jewels? A magic crown?”

“More precious than gold,” the lady said, looking down at the child, “and rarer than all the gems of the earth. But so terribly fragile that a single touch could shatter it forever.” She closed her eyes. “And the girl knew that if she didn’t take the treasure far, far away, it would be destroyed.”

...

The girl took the treasure out of the room. Leaving the keys lying in a heap on the floor, she strode back down the long corridor, and up the stairs.

As she walked through the halls of his castle, her eyes drifted over all the beautiful things the monster had collected, objects meant to inspire awe, envy, fear, and perhaps even lust.

The sight of them filled her with unspeakable rage.

She smashed all his fine furniture into splinters, tore his silk sheets to ribbons, and ground every beautiful thing she could lay her hands on into dust.

When she was done, she turned to look at the ruin she had made of his home, her breath coming hard and uneven. There was a hot, fierce ache in her chest, and she felt tears prick her eyes, but she did not allow them to fall.

“Goodbye, sisters,” she said.

And she fled.

Only when she was many miles away, so far that the vast metropolis had shrunk to nothing more than a black speck on the horizon, did she finally allow herself to cry.

She did not weep out of some misguided affection for the monster. Not because she was lonely, either, or because she was frightened. Not even because she had left the only home she’d ever known.

No, she wept because she knew she would not be able to keep the treasure for herself.

For she had not forgotten what she’d seen in the mirror, or the things the voices had told her.

She had spent sixteen years in the monster’s castle. She’d eaten his food, and slept in his bed, and even though she had escaped, she was still his creature. He had made her in his image, and she knew that under her blighted touch the treasure would be destroyed just as surely as in his own hand. She was part monster herself.

...

And here again the lady paused.

“You must understand,” she said, looking closely at the child, “it was very difficult for the girl, because she wanted the treasure very, very badly. More than she had ever wanted anything, in fact. But she knew that in order to keep it safe, she had to give it up.”

“Who did she give it to?” the child asked.

“People she could trust,” the lady said, swallowing. “People who could take better care of it than she could.”

The child kicked her feet impatiently. “What did the monster do when he found out she was gone?”

“When he realized that the girl had destroyed his home and escaped with his treasure, he was very angry. He sent out all of his cleverest servants to look for her.” The lady’s lips drew back from her teeth into something that was not quite a smile, and her eyes went hard. “But he never found her. The girl was clever too. And it had its uses, being a monster.”

The child frowned. “What about the pony?”

“The pony?” The lady blinked. “Why, I suppose he is still there.”

The child crossed her arms. “No,” she said, in a tone that did not brook arguement.

“He wasn’t in any danger,” the lady protested. “The monster didn’t want to eat a pony. And besides,” she said, half under her breath, “do you have any idea how difficult it is to arrange covert off-planet transportation for livestock?”

“She didn’t leave the _pony_ ,” the child insisted, her lower lip wobbling.

“You’re absolutely right,” the lady said. “How could I be so forgetful? The pony got away too. He kicked down his fence, ran away and met up with the girl outside the castle. “

“And then what?”

“That’s it,” the lady said, with a nervous shrug. “That’s the end.”

“That’s the _end_?”

“I’m afraid so,” said the lady, turning away from the child’s astonished stare. She reopened her work interface and busied herself by beginning a sharply worded message to her colleague.

The child thought for a moment. “That’s not a very good story,” she said.

The lady stopped typing. “I’m sorry,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “It’s the only one I know.”

“That’s all right,” the child said, patting her hand. “I liked the part about the pony.” She yawned, stretching out her arms.

From the other side of the shuttle, a woman’s voice suddenly rang out.

“Ori?”

“Oh,” the child said, sitting straight up. “I have to go. Mummy’s calling.”

“Oh,” the lady echoed, looking down at her lap. “Well. I suppose you had better go to her then.”

“Goodbye,” the child said, slipping down from her seat. “Thank you for the story.”

She took one step down the aisle, then stopped. Turning back to look at the lady, she tilted her head, and her brow furrowed. “Will I see you again?”

The lady’s eyes widened, and for a moment she stared at the child. Then her mouth twisted into something that was halfway between a smile and a grimace, and she sank back against the seat.

“I don’t know,” she said. She rubbed her temple, glancing down at the black and yellow logo embossed on her interface. “I’m afraid I have a great deal of work to do.”

Yet as soon as she had finished speaking her eyes were once again drawn to the child’s face. She reached out, then hesitated, her fingers curling back.

Slowly, tentatively, as though she were afraid the child might recoil from her touch, she brushed an errant lock of hair away from the child’s forehead. For one second she let her hand linger on the girl’s soft cheek.

“But I promise you this, Oriana,” she said. “If we ever do meet again, I’ll have a better story to tell you.”

**Author's Note:**

> [St Vincent- 'Strange Mercy'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JwXCBi-Eh8)


End file.
